16th L. Valtueña International Humanitarian Photography Award
Médicos del Mundo created this award in memory of four of its volunteers—Luis Valtueña, Flors Sirera, Manuel Madrazo and Mercedes Navarro—who were killed in Rwanda in 1997 and Bosnia in 1995 while working on humanitarian aid projects. Luis Valtueña was a professional photographer and reporter for the Cover news agency in Spain, which is why the award bears his name.
Once again, La Casa Encendida is proud to host the exhibition featuring the winners of this international award conferred by Médicos del Mundo [Doctors of the World].
This year's prize-winning series was submitted by the photographer Olmo Calvo (b. Santander, 1982). Calvo began taking photos for the Spanish periodical Molotov in 2001, while studying to qualify as an image technician. He went on to co-found the periodical Diagonal in 2004, where he worked as a photo editor. Meanwhile, he continued his education thanks to grants from the Regional Government of Cantabria, taking courses on documentary photography and digital editing at PhotoEscuela (run by Agencia Cover) in Madrid and the Motivarte School of Photography in Buenos Aires.
In 2006 he became a co-founder of the SUB photographers' cooperative in Buenos Aires, working regularly in Argentina on photo reports. He has won various international awards with the SUB cooperative, including a prize at the 2009 Cuenca Art Biennial in Ecuador and several distinctions at the 2010 Pictures of the Year Latin America. His photographs have been published in national and international media. He currently works on the photo editing team at Diagonal, remains an active member of the SUB photographers' collective in Buenos Aires, and accepts freelance assignments for the press in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, France and Germany.
